Exercise is necessary to maintain both physical and mental health. Although many people prefer exercising outdoors, it is often difficult to do so due to potentially adverse weather conditions and/or unsuitable urban environments. Accordingly, many individuals have taken to exercising indoors in places such as at health clubs, gyms, or even their own home (e.g., a room or garage) where environmental conditions are controllable and predictable. In these settings, weight lifting equipment may be used to improve one's muscular strength, while fitness machines (e.g., treadmills, elliptical machines, stationary bicycles, etc.) may be used for cardiovascular exercise.
Despite the advantages provided by fitness machines, today's fitness machines are limited in what they can do for a user. For example, fitness machines are predominantly “manual” in design. Namely, each time a user begins a workout on a fitness machine, he/she typically provides input data (e.g., weight, age, etc.), and selects a workout program or routine from multiple available routines (e.g., steady pace, interval training, hills, etc.). The available workout routines are often poorly tailored to the specific user of the fitness machine, making it more difficult for users to achieve fitness-related goals given the limited, manual input available on the fitness machine.
Current fitness machines are further limited in the feedback they can provide to the user. That is, any performance-related feedback provided by the fitness machine is generally limited to basic vital information (e.g., heart rate information) of the user. In such a scenario, a user is left to decide for themselves whether he/she should adjust the intensity (e.g., resistance, speed, etc.) of the workout program in an effort to achieve a target heart rate. Moreover, sensing mechanisms are limited to metal handgrips and heart monitoring chest straps configured to measure heart rate and other limited health measurements.
Furthermore, using fitness machines can also be rather boring and monotonous due to the unchanging scenery of most indoor environments. To cure this boredom, users typically listen to music or watch video media while exercising on a fitness machine. However, the novelty of such passive media can eventually wear off, leading to continued boredom while exercising on a fitness machine.